Jamie Condliffe

Edward Snowden is famous for one thing: blowing the whistle on the NSA. But really, he's just a normal guy. Before this all happened, for instance, he threw parties like all of us! Wait, maybe not quite: they were encryption parties.

The Washington Post just published the first interview with Edward Snowden since the initial wave…
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Wired reports that, months before Snowden leaked classified NSA documents, he gathered friends at the back of a Hawaiian furniture store and showed them how to protect their online data. It was a crypto party!

In fact, he organized it with activist Asher Wolf and former Tor developer Runa Sandvik; apparently neither really knew much about Snowden, and had no idea what he was about to do. So, quite secretive partying, then.

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Admittedly, it was quite a ballsy move to go organizing events like this at the time. Indeed, speaking to Wired, Wolf explained that it "was a huge risk for him to teach a crypto party while he was working for the NSA. I'm glad he did. What a fucking legend." Party hard, Edward. Party. Hard. [Wired]